


i thought i was a fool for no one (oh baby, i'm a fool for you)

by obscurial



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Twilight Fusion, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Eye Contact, Human/Vampire Relationship, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vampires, a Twilight Remastered if u will, aka the twilight au absolutely nobody asked for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24878038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obscurial/pseuds/obscurial
Summary: Images of dark eyes and handprints and blurry movements are the only thoughts that fill his mind, and belatedly, Itaru gets the dreadful, queasy feeling that he’s just been a witness to something that was never meant for him to see.(Also known as a half ironic, half not, Twilight rewrite.)
Relationships: Chigasaki Itaru & Citron, Chigasaki Itaru/Tonooka Takumi (not endgame), Chigasaki Itaru/Utsuki Chikage
Comments: 28
Kudos: 59





	1. what happens in huntswood, stays in huntswood

**Author's Note:**

> this is probably the first chaptered fic i'm sort of planning on doing in, like, Forever, so i'd like to cordially invite you to this mess... hopefully you'll have fun while you're here?  
> (also i can hear what you're thinking, and no, the plot won't go entirely like twilight. you can rest assured ... !)

Standing on his father’s front porch after what feels like a century, Itaru hesitates, fingers hovering over the doorbell. Admittedly, he’s stalling for time, counting every speck of mould and every paint crack again and again until he feels a little cross-eyed. He notices the faded pencil marks rising in increments along the side of the battered door frame, and is instantaneously brought back to a time when he was just barely a metre tall, clutching at the rough denim of his father’s jeans to keep his balance while he crouched over Itaru, drawing careful (but shaky) lines above the crown of his head.

He finds himself smiling, both at the memory and at the thought of his mother willingly ruining her pristine doorway with graphite stains. _She would have an absolute fit if she saw how the house looked now_ , he thinks as he stares at the mud-coloured floorboards and vaguely recalls that they used to be mint green. The house feels familiar—this was where he’d spent a majority of his childhood, after all—yet simultaneously alien, in that he’s not sure if the Itaru-shaped hole he’d left in it still demands to be filled anymore. But before he’s even able to reach for the doorbell once more, the door swings open, startling him nearly to death.

“You’ve been loitering for so long that I was starting to wonder if I’d somehow hung a ‘do not disturb’ sign,” his father says to him in that same sarcastic drawl Itaru remembers, and he can’t help but throw himself into his arms, smothering his face with the soft, knitted cardigan he’s always associated with his father.

“I missed you, Dad,” Itaru whispers into his cardigan, and if his father feels a wet patch growing across his shoulder, he doesn’t say anything about it.

“Missed you too, kiddo. Now get your stuff inside, before another concerned jogger phones me to say that there’s a homeless person on my porch.”

\---

In some ways, things haven’t really changed in Huntswood. 

The weather’s still as shit as ever, telltale puddles on the streets reminding Itaru to pack an umbrella for school tomorrow, lest his incompetent immune system curses him with a cold. He sighs, already thinking of ways to waterproof his handheld gaming console (he’s on his last battle in Fire Emblem, and he’d be damned if he has to start all over because his DS got soaked in the rain). A tiny voice at the back of his head–which sounds _awfully_ like his mother–scolds him for even considering bringing it with him on his first day of high school: _You ought to make some friends at school, sweetheart… What if you need help, one day? Zelda’s certainly not going to come to your rescue._

He scowls in response, shoving a couple more game cards into his satchel out of spite. He’s transferring near the end of a school year, anyway, so everyone’s already formed their own friendship groups. Itaru definitely can’t find it in himself to intrude. If anything, he’s perfectly happy to be a loner for the next few years, if his lack of social life means he’s able to easily balance his studies and event tiering.

Leaning back into his chair, he spaces out, staring blankly at the Mario and Luigi bed sheets his father had prepared for him. He wonders if he’d made the right decision to move back to Huntswood. Granted, it wasn’t like he had another choice, not when his mother and her boyfriend–sorry, now _husband_ –were going on their honeymoon in Europe. But he’d just gotten used to the constant sunshine and busy streets in Darlingfield, and the damp forests in Huntswood felt so… claustrophobic. (It also definitely doesn’t help that he’d only just recently played Slenderman and was now rather terrified of the woods.)

“Hey, I’ve got a surprise for you,” his father says, poking his head into Itaru’s bedroom. He’s not really a smiley kind of guy, but Itaru can always tell when he’s in a good mood from the way that his eyes twinkle. “Come outside, I think you’d like it.”

\---

“Happy late 17th, Itaru,” his father says, and tosses him a shiny set of keys with a Lego figure keychain attached to it. Itaru blinks, half-shocked that his subpar coordination skills allowed him to catch that throw, but mainly because an off-white pickup truck is currently parked in their driveway, with his childhood best friend Tonooka seated in its driver’s seat. 

“You’re kidding,” Itaru breathes out, before his face nearly splits from the force of his grin. “This is mine?”

“All yours. I had Tonooka fix it up… you know how his family runs a mechanic.”

From an objective point of view, the truck was… well, it looks like it’s seen better days. The paint job may only be mediocre, the sideview mirrors may not match and the left headlight may have a thin crack running through its center, but hey, it was _his_ , and he loved it nevertheless. Itaru all but launches himself at his father, an endless stream of ‘thank you’s pouring out from his lips–one for each and every time he’d escape walking in the rain to and from school. His father merely laughs, ruffling Itaru’s hair in that way that he always does to distract Itaru from his embarrassed face.

“I know that iTunes gift card I mailed you wasn’t good enough, so I wanted to make up for it,” he quietly says, and Itaru shakes his head, feeling the sharp beginnings of waterworks in the corners of his eyes. 

“You’re the only person who still remembers, Dad. It means a lot,” he chokes out, fiddling with the arms of Lego Batman to keep his fidgety hands busy.

Just as the conversation lapses into a comfortable silence, he hears the quiet clearing of a throat from behind him, and turns to face Tonooka with a half-teary smile.

“Hey,” Itaru starts, blinking hard a couple of times to maintain his composure, “Thanks for the truck.”

Tonooka shrugs modestly, patting the revarnished bonnet. “No worries, man. Had to make up for all the birthdays that I’ve missed somehow, right?”

“You really don’t, but thank you. It’s nice seeing you again, Tonooka.”

And he truly means it–the years have been kind to Tonooka, blessing him with all the height and muscle that Itaru’s always secretly wished for. He’s grown out his dark hair, the half-up, half-down style reminiscent of the way he’d seen Tonooka’s grandfather wear his hair whenever he came over to visit. If it weren’t for his signature crooked smirk, Itaru’d say that he could hardly even recognise the guy. Talk about a glow up.

“You staying for dinner, Tonooka?” Itaru’s father asks, shoving his hands into his pockets to shield them from the unforgivable Huntswood winter. Itaru notices a couple threads fraying, but considering the age of the garment, he wonders how on Earth his father was able to keep the cardigan in such good condition.

Tonooka shakes his head, and the pout that appears on his face is _so_ familiar, Itaru feels practically compelled to smile fondly. “Wish I could, but I gotta head back home. School starts at five tomorrow.”

“What? No it doesn’t,” Itaru blurts out. Or at least he sure hopes it doesn’t.

“Don’t worry, dweeb. I go to the school across the river. We start earlier,” Tonooka snorts, reaching out to pinch Itaru’s nose teasingly and oh, he definitely does _not_ miss this. Not one bit.

Rubbing his sore nose, Itaru sniffles pathetically. “Well, good thing I only have single player games, then. Your loss.”

\---

The ride to school is, well, challenging. Itaru’s definitely not at all used to the rocky terrain, and accompanied with an unreliable GPS app on his phone, he finds himself rocking up to the parking lot about two minutes before class starts. (His initial plan was to arrive before everyone else, sit at the very back of the class, and keep his head down for the rest of his high school career. So much for that.)

“Warm greetings,” a voice chirps from his left as he locks his truck doors. Confused, he turns to face where it’s coming from, and instantly regrets it. The boy is practically sparkling, his eyes warm and welcoming, his smile bright and pearly. Itaru squints, unable to take this much cheerfulness at 8am. “Citron is my name! And what is yours? And are you also a fresh man?”

“Itaru,” he dumbly replies in a moment of weakness, his plan of minimal interaction going out the goddamn window. “Yeah, um, I’m a freshman. If that’s what you mean.”

“That is most brilliant news!” Citron crows, latching onto Itaru’s arm as he leads him into the school. Itaru notices the way the other students are staring at them, he hears their snickers, and he desperately wishes he could melt into his shoes and disappear. _Operation Wallflower is gonna be an absolute flop, I guess._

Citron notices how stiff Itaru’s arm is, and the worried crease between his eyebrows. He sheepishly releases his hold on him. “Oh, sorry! I did not mean to make you feel discomfort… I forget that not everybody is okay with that,” he rambles on about what classes he’s taking, endearingly so, but his shoulders have now deflated themselves of their confidence, the smile on his face no longer reaching his eyes. And okay, Itaru may not be the nicest of people, but he’s definitely not a fucking asshole. 

Looping his arm into Citron’s, Itaru flashes him the widest grin he’s capable of wearing, and he’s mildly surprised to find that he’s actually not faking it at all. “It doesn’t bother me at all, Citron. Are we heading to literature now?”

And boy, is the payoff worth it. Citron gapes at him with wide, glistening eyes, and he looks at Itaru like he’s the best thing to have ever happened to Huntswood. “Dearest Itaru,” he sniffs, and Itaru swears he sees him swipe away a stray tear, “I can already tell that we are going to be the _breast_ of friends.”

Laughing, Itaru thinks to himself that he’s probably not suited for the loner life, after all. 

Literature is an absolute blast with Citron, whose hilarious running commentary keeps him awake and amused throughout the entire hour. He’s not much of a reader himself, but if Citron were to explain the whole of Jane Eyre in his own words, he thinks he could see himself quickly becoming quite the Brontë fan.

Looking at Itaru’s class schedule, Citron groans and pretends to throw a hissy fit, while their teacher kindly pretends to be extremely interested in her journal. “Oh, how terrible! You have biology now while I have statistics. I think I will die from loneliness without you.”

“Okay, drama queen, I’m sure you’ll survive an hour, even without my Godly presence,” Itaru jokes, lightly thwacking Citron on the arm with a book. “I’ll see you at the cafeteria, yeah?”

Citron salutes him with a mock-serious expression before trudging down the hallway, the eighteen enamel pins and badges on his backpack clacking against each other noisily. Snorting, Itaru turns to head to his next class, the slight weight in his jacket reminding him that his Nintendo Switch had been untouched the entire time.

\---

Everyone’s already in pairs by the time Itaru locates his biology class, and without the boisterous Citron by his side, Itaru feels himself retracting into his loner shell. He quickly scans the back of the room for an empty chair, but alas, all he finds are judgemental faces staring back at him. He thinks he feels a little sick.

“Mister Chigasaki, I believe Mister Utsuki doesn’t have a lab partner. Go take a seat next to him,” his biology teacher says to him in the most monotonous voice known to mankind, and Itaru already knows that he’s going to hate this class. 

It takes a while for him to find his lab partner, but when he does, Itaru nearly does a double take. The guy is _unbelievably_ attractive. But not in the shallow way–not like a celebrity–in a strange, otherworldly kind of way. It’s as if every single cell in Itaru’s body is gravitating towards this person like he’s the goddamn Sun of Itaru’s universe. But much like the Sun, Itaru gets the odd feeling that he shouldn’t get too close, in fear of getting burnt. He swallows the lump in his throat, and silently sits on the chair beside him.

Itaru feels like his lab partner is staring right at him, boring deep holes into the side of his head. He’s tempted to look him right in the eyes and confront him, but a tiny, tiny part of him frets that if he allows himself to look at him, even just once, he’s not sure if he’d be able to look away. 

“Could you pass the handout, please?” Itaru flinches, realising that he’d allowed his mind to carelessly drift away. He didn’t even notice the teacher placing two sheets of paper on his side of the bench. 

“Right, sorry,” he mumbles, sliding a sheet to his lab partner, who wordlessly takes it and begins filling in all of the answers like he’s done this a million times before. Oh, so he’s the snooty genius type that thinks of everyone as unworthy and beneath them. Yeah, okay, Itaru’s dealt with them before. He can handle it.

He begins tackling his own sheet, and finds that he’s kind of struggling with half of the questions. He does feel a bit self-conscious about having to erase and rewrite his answers about a hundred times, but he’d much rather go through his entire stick of white-out than ask his rude lab partner for help. 

“The word you’re looking for is anaphase,” his lab partner says to him, just as the bell rings, “It’s in the textbook, page thirty-four. You should really take a look through it, sometime.” And with a polite smile, he leaves, swinging his satchel onto his shoulder. 

Itaru clenches his jaw to stop himself from saying something he’ll probably regret later, and swallows his pride like a stone. Oh, yeah. He _definitely_ hates this class.

\---

“He said that to you? Chikage Utsuki said that to you?” Citron gasps, a spinach leaf hanging onto his chin for dear life.

“Yeah, what a dick, right?” Itaru fumes, stabbing his slice of frozen pizza viciously with a knife. “I get that he’s smart and all, but he doesn’t have to be all stuck up like that. And he’s my lab partner, Citron, I’m fucking stuck with him for the rest of the year.” 

Citron closes his mouth, thoughtfully tapping his fork against his bottom lip. “Well, at least your suffering will be briefly lasting for only a few more months. Although I am much curious. The Ethy-reels do not interact with other peoples outside of themselves.”

Itaru pauses. “The Ethereals?”

“Well, that is the name of which we call them by,” Citron shrugs, looking at a spot somewhere behind Itaru in the cafeteria. He turns around to peek at this exclusive posse of (assumedly) stuck up brats, only to find himself completely _entranced_. They’re only high schoolers surrounding a lunch table, yet Itaru thinks he could see this image in oil and on canvas, hanging in a museum somewhere, the hurried scrawl of some old master painter’s signature across the lower right corner. Each and every one of them have faces that deserve to be celebrated and preserved in glaze, deserve to be seen and admired by millions all over the world. If Itaru was even the slightest bit religious, he thinks he could let himself believe that this is what the angels would’ve looked like. 

Itaru’s gaze slowly pans across the five students, before finally settling on his lab partner… who is staring right at him. Itaru’s gut reaction is to quickly recoil, ducking his head in embarrassment for having been caught, but perhaps there’s something in the way Chikage’s watching him that instills him with a sense of newfound bravery, because he grants himself the selfish pleasure of looking. Pleasure truly is the only word to describe it–sweeping his vision over every curve and dip of Chikage’s face at his own leisure feels _good_ , it just does, and well, Itaru’s always been quite the hedonist. Why should he deny himself the simple pleasure of admiring beauty when he sees it?

Chikage is the first to look away, deciding to rejoin the conversation at his table. There’s a small, childish sense of victory budding in Itaru’s chest, and he turns back around, feeling quite pleased at finally having the upper hand. 

Citron scoffs upon Itaru’s return, chewing his half-wilted leaves in feigned annoyance. “Were you really engaging in the fucking of the eyes, Itaru? In front of my salad?”

Itaru simply shrugs, fighting to keep the smug look off of his face. Maybe biology won’t be all that bad.

\---

Of course, as always, nothing ever goes Itaru’s way. 

His lab partner wasn’t in class for the past week, leaving Itaru to not only do all of their class activities alone, but also to do all of them in complete and utter _boredom_. (And he had just found something to entertain himself, too…) 

So when Itaru walks into biology on Monday, the familiar head of green at his bench takes him completely by surprise.

“Hello,” his lab partner says to him, the tone of his voice amicable enough to lure Itaru into being willing to hear what he had to say. “Itaru, right? I’m Chikage. Sorry for being absent, I was really sick last week. Could you help fill me in, please?”

“Yeah, sure,” Itaru finds himself saying, more shocked than anything to respond in any other way. What? The snooty genius is asking _him_ for help? “Do you wanna look at my worksheets, or…?”

“That’ll be great, thanks.” Chikage’s smiling at him, and Itaru almost pinches himself on the arm, just to see if he’s dreaming. He didn’t imagine the rude lab partner thing up, did he?

As he pulls the previous handouts out from his bag, just to confuse him even further, Chikage continues speaking.

“You’re new to this town, aren’t you?”

“Kind of? I used to live here when I was a kid, but I just moved from Darlingfield,” Itaru says, passing his worksheets to his eerily friendly lab partner.

“Oh, wow,” Chikage hums, and Itaru thinks he must be an awfully good actor, because he sounds genuinely interested in learning about him. “I’ve never been, but the weather’s probably way better, yeah?” 

Itaru can only nod, the surrealism of this conversation overwhelming him entirely. Who is this guy, and what did he do to that bastard from before?

The rest of class continues like that, Chikage occasionally initiating social interaction, and Itaru half-responding, because the rest of his brain is too busy astral projecting into the fucking sky. He even follows Itaru out the classroom door to his locker, staring down at him with (strangely) kind-looking eyes… Wait–

“Are you a cosplayer?” Itaru blurts out, because obviously his parents have raised a heathen who has absolutely no sense of social awareness whatsoever. The Confused Normie™ smile on Chikage’s face tells Itaru all that he needs to know.

“Sorry,” he mutters, shoving his textbook into his locker. Stupid, _stupid_ otaku brain. “It’s just- I swear your irises were yellow the last time I saw you, but they’re, like, black now, so I was wondering if you were maybe wearing coloured contacts-”

Chikage isn’t saying anything, but the smile has now completely dropped from his face.

“You know what? Nevermind. It was nice to meet you, Chikage. Glad to hear you’re feeling better now.” Itaru swallows the word vomit that’s spilling out from his lips and closes his locker door shut, all while avoiding Chikage’s stony gaze. _God_ , he was so close to befriending someone cool and he blew it, he absolutely blew it. 

_But hey_ , Itaru thinks with a humourless laugh, _what’s new?_

\---

For the rest of the day, Itaru feels like he’s operating on autoplay mode. 

Words from his teachers are just going in one ear and coming out the other, he moves from classroom to classroom without even realising what subject he’s there for… Not even Citron’s jokes could bring him out of his stupor. He just feels like he’s not really there at all, his horrific interaction with Chikage replaying over and over again in his head. 

“I hope you feel better tomorrow, my friend,” Citron says with a sympathetic smile, leaving Itaru at the side of his pickup truck. He hesitates, his hand hovering over the door handle. He’s not sure if he quite trusts himself behind the wheel at the moment, actually. But how else is he going to get home–

“Look out!” a voice shrieks from behind him, and Itaru immediately snaps out of his daze, turning to see a skidding van heading straight towards him at full speed. 

His heart leaps into his throat, and logically, he knows he should move away, but he’s too fucking out of it to do anything other than watch his demise unfold before his very eyes. He thinks of his father, and his warm cardigan. He thinks of Tonooka. He thinks of Citron. And for some reason, he thinks of–

“Chikage?” Itaru whispers, staring eye to eye with the man himself, and he squeezes his eyes shut as a resounding, piercing crash of metal against metal envelopes him entirely, forcing him onto his knees from the sheer assault on his eardrums. 

He’s suddenly pressed against the side of his passenger door, an arm wrapping itself around his waist. Itaru immediately opens his eyes, half-confused and half-delirious, and sees that he’s clutching a handful of a familiar cashmere turtleneck, the soft material wrinkling in his quivering grip and somehow anchoring him to reality. He looks up and lo and behold, Chikage’s face is about a centimetre away from his own, but if anything, he looks equally as afraid as Itaru feels. 

As if he’d been scalded, Chikage quickly releases Itaru from his hold, and he flees the scene in the blink of an eye. _How… How’d he do that? No, wait_ , Itaru thinks, his eyes widening as he starts to recognise that he’s now looking at a very human hand-shaped dent in the side of the van that had almost hit him. _How’d he do_ **_that_** _?_

“Itaru!” he thinks he hears Citron screech, and before he knows it, Itaru’s surrounded by a swarm of concerned–but probably just gossip-hungry–students. He’s very carefully moved onto the pavement by a teacher and eventually swaddled into a shock blanket, but when they ask him if he’s alright, he finds that he’s unable to even comprehend their question. 

Images of dark eyes and handprints and blurry movements are the only thoughts that fill his mind, and belatedly, Itaru gets the dreadful, queasy feeling that he’s just been a witness to something that was never meant for him to see.


	2. a dream within a dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! wow! am i really continuing the commitment of a chaptered fic? who knows!
> 
> thank you to everyone who's been cheering me on while i write this Monster!!! (a very special shoutout to chi, who's been feasting on these brainworms......)
> 
> also, a very very VERY big shoutout to jas for drawing some art for this fic!!!!! waaah thank you so much!!!! T___T please look at [jas's fanart](https://twitter.com/caviluxx/status/1276399846149074944?s=21) it's so pretty....!!!!!!!
> 
>  **TRIGGER WARNING:**  
>  this chapter contains a scene that some might find uncomfortable or triggering. (it's that scene in twilight where bella gets catcalled at and stalked by a group of drunk men at night, but edward steps in to save her just in time. a similar event happens, where itaru gets chased into an alleyway, but he does not fall to harm.) i've marked where the scene begins with a --- !!! --- and where it ends with the same marking, so feel free to skip it if you don't want to read it. please stay safe, my friends!

“Well, your vitals seem to be normal,” Dr Furuichi says, his gloved fingers pressed against Itaru’s inner wrist. “Are you feeling alright?”

Itaru nods but his mind’s still in his school’s parking lot, replaying the crash over and over again–from the way Chikage miraculously appeared just in time to save him to the handprint he’d left in the metal to the way he disappeared in a flash. His shoulder twitches from a full-bodied shiver, the feeling of Chikage’s strangely chilled arm lingering around the small of his back. He’s not sure why, but something just… didn’t feel right here.

With careful eyes, Dr Furuichi pulls back and watches Itaru gaze off into the distance, before eventually placing the stethoscope back around his neck. “I don’t see any signs of head trauma either, so I think you’ll be just fine. I’ve already called your father, so he should be on his way here to take you home.”

That quickly yanks Itaru out from his thoughts. “You know my father?”

“Yes,” Dr Furuichi says, with a polite smile on his face. It looks well practised. “I’d like to think of him as a friend.”

Sitting back against his chair, Itaru squints, taking a moment to think about just how small of a town Huntswood really is. Well, if he’s a friend of his father’s, Itaru would like to think that he can trust him too.

“It would’ve been a lot worse if my lab partner Chikage wasn’t there,” Itaru blurts out, his eyes fixed on Dr Furuichi’s narrowed eyes, “He knocked me out of the way and I just– I have no idea how he got to me so quickly. He wasn’t even anywhere near my truck.”

It’s almost amazing, the way Dr Furuichi wears his expressions so… professionally. 

“Sounds like you were very lucky,” he says, the tone of his voice indicating to Itaru that the conversation is now over. Itaru fidgets in the silence, wringing his hands nervously.

“Just wait here, I’m sure your father will be arriving soon,” the doctor informs him, before leaving the room. His shoes make the most satisfying (yet intimidating) clacking sounds against the vinyl floors, lulling Itaru into an almost unexpected sense of calm. But as Itaru continues to sit in the room, staring at the hardwood door and tapping his foot to no beat in particular, questions about what happened to his belongings and his truck begin to wander around the tip of his tongue. Well, it’s not like he’s really injured at all, no harm asking the receptionist if anyone had brought his stuff in… 

Just as he’s about to turn a corner down the hallway and into reception, however, he’s thrust into the position of an unwilling eavesdropper, a hushed conversation between familiar voices falling onto his ears. 

“I couldn’t help myself, Sakyo. I’m sorry.” Chikage?

A quiet clearing of the throat, and the shuffling of papers. “Don’t be sorry, you saved his life.” 

“Yeah, but he… he knows too much, now.”

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Itaru’s the ‘he’ in their conversation. Itaru quickly presses himself against the wall, his shoulders tensed up to his ears and his chest puffed out from holding in his breath. He’s afraid. What exactly _does_ he know?

“I just–” 

The conversation comes to an abrupt halt, and deep down, Itaru knows that his cover’s been blown. Somehow. He immediately starts speed walking in the opposite direction, to God knows what wing of the hospital, anywhere’s fine as long as he doesn’t run into–

Taking a quick peek behind him, Itaru sighs from relief when he confirms that he’s not being followed. Only to walk straight into a firm, cashmere-covered chest.

He smothers his embarrassingly loud screech with both of his palms, and he would’ve fallen flat on his ass if Chikage hadn’t caught him by the waist. Itaru shivers, swallowing the gasp that’s crawling up the depths of his throat. Fuck, he really wasn’t imagining it. Chikage’s hands really were _freezing_.

Itaru instantly backs away, every cell in his body screaming for him to maintain a safe distance. Chikage stares wordlessly. 

“C-Can I… talk to you for a second?” Man, he’s never heard himself sound so pathetic before.

“Sure,” Chikage says, the very definition of unfazed.

Slowly lowering his hands away from his face, Itaru takes a breath, before asking. “How… How did you get to me so quickly?”

Chikage’s lips curl into the most annoyingly serene smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Itaru. I was right there next to you. Did you hit your head in the crash? You might be a little confused.”

“I know what I saw,” Itaru snaps, his voice halfway between a whisper and a shout, “I saw you push that van away. You left a handprint!”

The way that Chikage laughs in response makes Itaru feel really, really small all of a sudden.

“Oh Itaru. You know no one’s going to believe you,” he calmly says, effectively knocking out every last bit of anger Itaru held within his chest. He hears the quiet threat in Chikage’s tone, loud and clear.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Itaru bravely declares, his heart climbing into his throat. He feels like the helpless prey within an eagle’s clutch, squirming and struggling and feeling its sharp claws dig into his ribs, pressing against his skin like knives.

Chikage doesn’t even grace him with a reply, leaving him to stand alone in a hallway that feels a couple degrees colder than what it was before.

\---

A dim light flickers at the corner of his eye, just enough for Itaru to recognise that he’s back in his mother’s home. Tall ceilings, ornate vases, marble floors… he could recognise that boring, personality-lacking aesthetic _anywhere_. But for some reason, something feels a little off about the place. Was this how it always was? It’s like everything–the walls, the furniture, the windows–grew just a little out of his reach and no matter how far Itaru stretches, somehow, they manage to evade his touch. Strange. 

As he begins to move, he notices that his feet feel heavier, almost as if they’ve been weighed down with chains. He struggles to trudge across the hallway, using every last bit of his strength to wade through the thick, marbled swamp and towards his bedroom door–the only semblance of familiarity he can find in this bizarre place.

He walks and walks and walks, but the closer he gets, the further the door seems to be. Itaru pants, feeling confused and breathless and exhausted all at once, and he collapses to the ground, knees buckling under him as he begins to sink, deep into the cold marble. He thinks he hears his own name, echoing through the halls. He wonders why he’s not struggling, even when he feels his lungs seize up, even when he sees a familiar set of dark, peering eyes.

“Chikage?” Itaru whispers, and an intense sense of déjà vu washes over him. His hands are buried in warm cashmere, the soft pressure of an arm curling around his waist, but this time, Itaru is braver. He reaches out to cradle the face of the figure who lurks in the darkness, guiding his head into the light as he leans in to–

Itaru yawns, blinking hard to clear the remnants of fog from beneath his eyelids. It’s still dark out, so he must’ve dozed off while he was ranking. (Not like it would be the first time.) _Oh shit_ , he thinks, _did my bonus round already expire?_

Just as he unlocks his phone, flooding his room with a bluish glow, Itaru sees a tall, dark figure standing at the foot of his bed. Instinctively, he does what any sane individual would do in this situation: he flings whatever’s in his hand at the figure, which in this case, unfortunately, is his phone.

It falls to the ground with a solid thump, not even within a foot radius around the figure, and he loudly curses because of course he missed, he absolutely fucking _sucks_ at the basketball arcade game. In his panic to turn on his bedside lamp, he topples over his alarm clock from his nightstand, the sound of it crashing against the hardwood ground barely enough to overcome the ringing in his ears. He curses even louder.

“Itaru? What’s happening?” he hears his father call out from down the hallway, and he’s absolutely about to yell about the intruder, except now that his room’s fully illuminated, he can clearly see that he’s the only person here. He breathes, shakily. _What the fuck just happened?_

His door bursts open with a resounding bang, his father at the ready with a baseball bat in hand, and Itaru feels awfully stupid all of a sudden, dumbly blinking at him from amongst his blankets. 

“Everything okay?” his father says, relaxing instantaneously. He approaches Itaru as if he were approaching a startled deer, moving in slow steps as he gently places the bat onto the ground. 

“I… I swear I saw someone in my room,” Itaru says, and he feels even more stupid now that he’s said it out loud. “Sorry to wake you.”

“Don’t be sorry, kiddo, I’m just… glad you’re okay. G’night."

“Night, Dad.”

Itaru sighs heavily once his father leaves, falling back onto his bed with a quiet _thwack_. He’s still a little disoriented, but from the bottom of his heart, he’s absolutely certain he wasn’t alone in his room. Though there was something about that figure that felt… familiar. Like he’d seen that silhouette somewhere before, but he can’t quite place where or when he did.

 _Well, whatever_ , he thinks, turning off his bedside lamp. The adrenaline from earlier was seeping out of him quickly, and all of a sudden, he feels a lot more exhausted than he initially thought he was. However, just when he thinks he’s about to fall asleep, he faintly remembers something like a glint coming from the head of the figure, almost like they were wearing a pair of round glasses that was reflecting the light from Itaru’s phone. But the thought melts away as his consciousness slips, and it buries itself into the back of his mind, forgotten by morning.

\---

“Hey, you okay? You’re spacing out,” Tonooka says, and Itaru immediately locks his phone, his thumb aimlessly rubbing at the newly-made scratch across his screen.

“Yeah, I’m good. Just, um, tired from school,” he replies and Tonooka nods in sympathy, gesturing for Itaru to scooch over and make some room for him on the sofa. After his freakout, Itaru’s father didn’t feel comfortable leaving him alone at home, so he took Itaru to poker night at Tonooka’s house with him. Itaru sort of figured that his father’s been keeping in touch with Tonooka’s–from what he remembers in his childhood, they were inseparable. It was kind of nice, actually. He’s just glad that after he’d left, his father didn’t spend all these years alone.

“What game were you playing?” Tonooka asks, sitting a lot closer than Itaru had expected him to. He feels warm, and without even realising, Itaru moves towards him like a moth to a flame. If Tonooka had noticed the sudden closeness, he didn’t say anything, simply stretching over to rest his arm on the back of the sofa. If it were anybody else, Itaru would probably feel weirded out by the intimacy, but maybe because it’s _Tonooka_ –familiar, warm, Tonooka–sitting beside him, Itaru doesn’t think anything of it.

“Nothing much, just doing my dailies,” Itaru says, punctuating his sentence with a yawn. He hears his father’s rumbling laughter from the other room. “Oh, yeah, uh, I kind of got into an accident yesterday and I need you to help fix the side of my truck.”

Tonooka’s eyes widen. “What? Are you hurt?”

Itaru laughs, as Tonooka stubbornly begins checking him for bruises or broken bones. “No, I’m okay. But the passenger door’s a little… busted.”

“Oh, that’ll be easy. When’re you free to have me come down and replace it?”

“You know me. No social life. I’m free anytime as long as an event’s not on,” Itaru breezily says, which earns him a stern flick on the forehead. He winces, rubbing at it with his fingers.

“I’ll come down sometime this week, then. I’ve got this essay due soon and I should probably work on it.”

Itaru makes sure to flick Tonooka on the forehead twice as hard as he mock-scolds him for putting his work off to the last minute, which turns into a childish wrestling match that Itaru’s been destined to lose from the start. Itaru shrieks when Tonooka pinches him in the waist–the fucker still remembers his weak spot, apparently–and thrashes wildly, but with Tonooka’s entire weight pinning him down against the sofa, he’s completely powerless.

“Alright, a-alright, you win! Get off of me! I’m a recent victim of a vehicular accident, you heartless bastard!” Itaru hollers, squirming helplessly. Despite his humiliation, he can’t help but grin from the nostalgia of it all.

There’s a moment when they just stare at each other, sweaty and unruly from the wrestling, and it only just hits Itaru that _man_ , Tonooka grew up to be kind of hot. He looks disheveled, wavy hair falling over his face–some strands sticking to his wet forehead–but there’s something about the way he’s staring down at him that makes Itaru’s chest feel a little tight. It’s that same feeling he experienced yesterday, at the school parking lot and in the hospital hallway. He thinks of dark, sharp eyes and subconsciously, he swallows. He’s far too lost in thought to notice Tonooka’s eyes taking a quick glance down at his lips.

“Itaru, can I–”

“Have you heard of _The Ethereals_?” Itaru blurts out.

Tonooka stares blankly at him. “The… Ethereals?”

“Yeah,” Itaru says, gently pushing Tonooka off of him as he sits himself upright on the sofa. Tonooka follows, the gap he places between them on the sofa speaking volumes at a pitch that Itaru doesn’t hear. “They’re this… group of students at my high school and one of them’s my lab partner, his name’s Chikage.”

“Chikage. Chikage Utsuki?” Tonooka asks, and from the tone of his voice, Itaru gets the feeling that Tonooka doesn’t really like him.

“Yeah! How’d you know?”

Tonooka looks so serious, all of a sudden, but Itaru can’t figure out why. “Itaru,” he speaks, his voice rough and low, almost like a growl, “Chikage Utsuki and his group of friends are bad, bad news. We call them the cold ones, and you do not want to be associated with them. Trust me on this.”

Itaru nods slowly, remembering how icy Chikage’s arms and hands had felt. How on Earth did Tonooka know about that? For the first time in his life, Itaru thinks that there’s possibly a side to his childhood friend that he doesn’t yet know. The wariness he feels must show on his face because within an instant, Tonooka morphs back into his usual, friendly demeanor. 

“Hey, I’m… I’m sorry if I scared you. I’m not mad at you, I just,” he murmurs, reaching out to rest his hand on Itaru’s shoulder, “I just want you to be safe, and those guys are dangerous. Promise me you’ll stay away from them?” He holds out an olive branch in the shape of his pinky.

“I promise,” Itaru quietly says, hooking Tonooka’s pinky with his own, a hesitant smile on his face.

\---

Of course, Itaru just wouldn’t be Itaru if he didn’t stick his nose into places he really shouldn’t.

“Are you absolutely sure that you are feeling in the magenta of health? You do not need me to escort you to the bookstore?” Citron asks, his big goo-goo eyes and his exaggerated pout making Itaru smile.

“Affirmative,” he replies, unlocking the doors of his truck. “I know you’ve gotta bring your brothers to baseball practice anyway, so don’t worry about it.”

Citron pulls Itaru into a brief hug, and Itaru finds himself leaning into it subconsciously. He’s kind of gotten used to Citron’s over-affectionate mannerisms, and he’d never admit it to him, but Itaru really does enjoy it.

“Well, take the best of care, Taruchi! Drive safe! Love you!” his voice tapers off as he sprints towards the bus, his backpack bouncing with every step. Itaru doesn’t say that he loves him back, but he makes sure to hang around long enough so that he’s able to blow pretend kisses at him from his truck. (He gets a heart on the fogged-up bus window in return.)

Getting into his truck, Itaru feels a little twinge of anxiety in the pit of his stomach. He’d done some research, last night, just off of what Tonooka had told him. 

_We call them the cold ones._

He’d found a whole lot of garbage and nonsense, but amongst the questionable articles, one book had stood out to him. It had been written just about the time when Huntswood was beginning to pick up its population, probably around the late 70’s, and from the preview alone, it sounded pretty interesting: ‘In _The Extended History of Huntswood_ , we explore the legend of the Cold Ones, who are the immortal enemy of the Canis’. 

He’s not sure if it’ll have all the answers he’s looking for, but hey, it’s a start.

Locking his truck doors, Itaru realises that once again, his GPS app had failed him and the bookstore’s a couple blocks down from where he’d parked his truck. As he squints, peering into the distance, he sees that it’s awfully crowded. _Shit_ , he thinks, _I’m probably not going to find another parking spot down there so I’m better off walking. Never thought I’d hear myself think that._

And so, with twenty dollars in his pocket and a certain lab partner in his mind, Itaru walks, eager to finally have some sort of clarity about this mess he’s been roped into.

\--- !!! ---

He must’ve taken a lot longer locating the book than he’d initially anticipated, because when Itaru leaves the store, book in hand, the skies are pitch black and the area is deserted. It feels like a completely different place without sunshine and if he’s honest, Itaru feels a tiny bit afraid to walk up towards his truck alone. Chikage’s probably not the only “cold one” in Huntswood, is he?

“Hey, pretty boy,” he hears from somewhere behind him, and the understanding that there’s a much more immediate danger present dunks itself over his head. His blood runs cold. Picking up his pace, he has his father’s number prepared on speed dial and he tries his best to block out whatever the hell the drunkards are yelling at him, but the moment he feels calloused fingers brush against his wrist, he shakes the hand off with all of his might and breaks into a desperate run.

He’s not even sure where he’s sprinting to but at this point, he doesn’t really care. Every single alarm in his head is going off at full volume and all at once and he feels nauseous but he can’t afford to stop, not even for a moment. 

They’re far too uncoordinated to catch him, however–what they lack in physicality, they make up for in knowledge. Itaru realises, about a couple seconds too late, that he’d carelessly allowed himself to be chased into a dead end. He tries to back out but with his wobbly legs, he accidentally crashes into a couple of garbage cans along the way, falling straight onto the grimy asphalt. _Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck._ He’s cursing and swearing and gasping for breath all at the same time, clutching at the ground as he tries his damned hardest to catch his breath.

“You… You’re a quick one, aren’t you… Fucking bitch…”

One of the drunkards approaches him with a small run-up, almost like he’s planning on kicking Itaru in the gut, and Itaru instinctively shuts his eyes, clenching his jaw to brace himself for the impact… that never comes.

Everything happens far too quickly for Itaru’s comprehension. He groans, clutching at his ears that are still ringing from the piercing screech of tires protesting from a sudden halt. Looking around isn’t an option–the entire alleyway’s been lit up by a pair of headlights, forcing Itaru into a temporary dizzy spell. He thinks he hears the slamming of a car door, followed by a couple of firm footsteps.

“Get in the car. Now.” 

And holy fucking _shit_ , Itaru’s never been happier to hear Chikage’s voice. Far too shaken up to argue, Itaru quickly stumbles to his feet, snatching up his book and scrambling into the car without a single shred of hesitation. He doesn’t really care about what’ll happen to the guys that were chasing him, nor does he care that he’s pretty much broken the promise he’d made to Tonooka about staying away from Chikage, he just knows that he wants to go home and he wants to go home _right now_.

\--- !!! ---

Chikage eventually gets in the car, and when he slams the car door shut, Itaru doesn’t even flinch from the sound. He feels entirely numb, all over. He doesn't even register Chikage’s words the first time that he speaks.

“I should go back and rip those guys’ fucking heads off,” he hisses, uncharacteristically emotional. Itaru notices how tightly Chikage’s gripping the steering wheel, his knuckles turning violently white and trembling from pure, unadulterated rage.

“N-No, it’s fine,” Itaru says on a reflex, and Chikage scoffs, stepping harder on the accelerator. Itaru presses himself into the seat, slightly panicked from just how fast he’s driving.

“Itaru,” he grits from between his clenched teeth, “You don’t know the vile, repulsive things that they were thinking.”

“And you do?”

Chikage remains silent, answering Itaru with a steadily climbing speed meter instead.

“It’s… not that hard to guess,” he lies (badly), and Itaru thinks that this is probably the most unnerved he’s ever seen Chikage. Even at the crash, he at least looked like he was under control. Right now, Itaru thinks Chikage reminds him of a kettle, bubbling with emotion that’s just pouring out of his spout, steaming at the ears and breathing in whistles. The murderous glare in his eyes just adds fuel to the rumour-filled fire, and if Itaru were ever in doubt of his lab partner being a dangerous man, that doubt is now entirely crushed to a pulp.

“Please slow down,” Itaru whispers, curling further and further into his seat, “You’re scaring me.”

That seems to do the trick. Chikage instantaneously relaxes, and the car slowly drifts to a stop.

“I… I’m sorry.” He doesn’t look at Itaru when he speaks, staring someplace beyond the car.

The silence that follows is excruciating, and Itaru feels like he has to say something to stop the high-pitched shrill in his ears.

“Were you… following me?”

No answer.

“How did you know that I was being chased?”

Chikage finally turns to Itaru, and he notes that Chikage’s irises are a deep, dark black. 

“I heard them. I heard what those low-lifes were thinking,” he replies, as if that makes any fucking sense at all.

“You… heard what they were thinking,” he parrots, staring at Chikage in disbelief. “So, what, you read minds?”

He watches, as Chikage cracks into a humourless laugh.

“Apparently not every mind,” he says, like it’s some hilarious joke that Itaru doesn’t understand, “I can read the mind of every single person on this street… except for yours. It’s genuinely, really frustrating.”

Itaru pauses to recalibrate his thoughts.

“Is there maybe something wrong with me?” he wonders, his chin tucked into his chest.

He doesn’t hear a reply, so he turns to look at Chikage, and Itaru finds himself a lot closer to him than he’d expected. But he doesn’t move away.

“I tell you that I read minds, and you’re the one that thinks there’s something wrong with you,” Chikage remarks, but despite his expressionless face, he sounds quite amused. They stare at each other in a surprisingly comfortable quiet, Itaru’s soft breaths being the only sound they hear in the car.

Chikage raises his hand, oh so slowly, up towards Itaru’s face. He frames his cold, cold fingers around Itaru’s cheekbones, and Itaru can’t help but hitch his breath. His heartbeat's frighteningly loud, and he wonders if Chikage hears the steady _thump thump, thump thump, thump thump_ just as loudly as he does. He feels Chikage gently guiding his face into the warm glow of a nearby streetlamp, and subconsciously, he finds himself parting his lips.

“I don’t think I have the strength in me to stay away from you anymore,” Chikage murmurs, and Itaru greedily swallows his confession whole.

“Then don’t.”

**Author's Note:**

> #TeamChikage or #TeamTonooka? u decide....... 
> 
> as always, u can come yell at me for making bad life decisions at [@madeoforchids](http://twitter.com/madeoforchids) on twitter!


End file.
